How did your garden grow? Did it meet your needs? Let’s talk about what you can do now, while this summer is fresh in your mind, to make next year better.
Review
First think about why you are gardening. There are many reasons: landscape to improve home value or meet home owners’ association guidelines, to have cut flowers, vegetables, berries, and fruits, to be outdoors and/or simply because you love gardening. Are you growing what you like?
How do you use or would you like to use your space? Imagine the outdoors as rooms for activities such as play areas, entertaining, quiet relaxation, a scenic view as well as in traditional planting beds. Is something you want missing or there that you don’t like really bothering you?
How much effort do you want to exert in the garden? This can be offset with cash by hiring help so this also includes your budget. If you found yourself working more than desired or that your plants suffered from neglect; you may want to scale back next year.
Revise
Many people obsess over their lawns working for a perfect carpet of turf. This is one area you can easily relax your efforts and help the environment. Natural lawn care philosophy is: if it’s green, it’s lawn.
Fall flowering annuals are a wonderful way to achieve a new look quickly, even yearly if you choose. Flowering bulbs and Dahlias, which require division every year or two also give you a perfect opportunity to relocate them! Though colors are fading around us, now is the time to imagine these plants blooming in the Spring. Don’t forget to mark and label their new location.
Most nurseries are clearing out their inventories so now is a great time to buy any trellis, plant supports, or other hardscaping you’ve had your eye on. It’s also a great time to install them as foliage has died back making the spaces more accessible.
If you decided you want to convert more lawn into planted beds, you can get a head start. Simply cover the area with plain heavy cardboard. This will help kill the grass, making it easier to turn and amend the soil for planting in Spring.
Rotate
Food crop rotation is used as a natural pest control, allows avoids nutrient depletion of the soil, and reduces the spread diseases spread in the soil. The underlying science is that groups of plants require specific nutrients, attract specific pests and are susceptible to specific diseases. By grouping like plants together and rotating them from place to place every year minimizes the negative impact of these problems.
Divide your growing space into four areas for rotating these vegetable groups. Legumes include beans. Leafy greens (Brassicas) include broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, kale, and spinach. Root vegetables include beet, carrot, garlic, onion, potato, radish, rutabaga, shallots, and sweet potato. Fruit bearing are cucumber, pumpkin, squash, sweet, corn, eggplant, and zucchini.
The order of rotation is important because of what each group takes from the soil. Legumes are nitrogen fixers. Leafy greens require a lot of nitrogen so should follow legumes. But root vegetables would only get leafier with nitrogen and not grow their meaty roots therefore should never follow legumes. Root vegetables would be much happier in the bed greens occupied last.
Fruit doesn’t require rotation. A typical rotation plan is four years. Write yours now!
Would you like to be a Master Gardener? Applications from WSU Extension office, 425-357-6010. Classes Thursdays, January 5 – March 2, 2017.
Photography by: Richelle Taylor